for exceptional offers through mercedes-benz financial services. potential plans by cyprus to tax bank deposits really royile the markets first thing this morn ing. cyprus? really. jane wells has been asking exactly that question on tw twitter. >> cyprus has a gross domestic product of $24 million. who are these people? we learned they really have a great sense of humor. one ad company parodied new york state of mind with state of mind. ♪ there's no toilets round, just a big hole in the ground ♪

>> see the whole hilarious video on my blog. how did one potential bank tax on an island give everybody a market wedgejy? i asked, it's like fill in the blank. here's responses. it's like a 20 buck battery grounding entire 787 fleet. an unpruned tree in ohio taking down the entire northeastern power grid. like a kim kardashian marriage. only lasts a short while and utterly meaningless. bloomberg banning large sodas. sailing a carnival ship and expecting to make it home. like me giving a rip about honey boo boo's next show. >> i love all of those. >> i liked them all till the last one. jane wells has clearly not redneckognized that's a hot show. >> when you have to subtitle white people. >> thank you so much.

we'll check out your blog. funny business. thanks for watching "street signs," everybody. >> closing bell. will we end the day higher? "closing bell," the most important hour of the trading day, is next. hi, everybody. happy monday to you. welcome to the "closing bell." i'm maria bartiromo at the new york stock exchange. the market made a comeback despite europe's market. we were positive about 30 minutes ago. >> we were. trust us, we were. i'm gill griffith. the dow has been down almost 110 points on the open this morning. that was well off a session low in the futures markets. it looked like we were going to have a big selloff today. hasn't happened thanks largely to a rally in shares of hewlett-packard which we will talk about coming up. >> this market recovering despite the rush on atms in cyprus sparked, of course, by the fear the country's bailout agreement will result in a one-time tax on the bank accounts of people. investors getting a sharper mind

that europe problems are far from over. coming up, talking about europe. how much of a threat is the happening in europe to the u.s. economy right now? >> also, two huge interviews still to come. meredith whitney tells us why she's very bullish on one of wall street's biggest banks and right now. and cit group chairman and ceo john thain reacts to the rumor that will not go away. namely that his company has been shopping for a suitor. john will try and lay those fears aside once again, those rumors. >> a look at where we stand as we approach this final stretch, final hour of the day. dow jones industrial down about 26 points. had been down 110. we are well off of the lows. nasdaq looks like this. also pretty volatile in the afternoon here. as you can see, it is down about five points at 3243. s&p 500 really similar move here. down five points. equities showing great resilience, pushing back from a triple digit loss today. will the crisis abroad keep the

markets in jeopardy? >> you had to be named steve to be on the panel today for the most part. steven water from russell investments, steve sacks. steve liesman is with us. and then there's that guy santelli who joins us daily as well. dr. wood, are we making too much of this? over the weekend we were all convinced that the markets were going to be slammed today. they were in asia overnight. then things allayed. what happened? >> i think the market's assessing the size versus what it represents. what we have in cyprus right now is the rule of law being brought into question. can rules about depository insurance change over the course of a weekend? i think the size of cyprus right now, what it represents directly is not a threat. we're assessing. but if this is contained in some broader bailout oriented scheme, i think it could be something weathered by the markets. that said, the rule of law being brought into question is not a good thing. >> steve sacks, are you seeing a reaction in some of the european etfs out there? or are you seeing the same kind

of money mentality going into exchange traded funds? what are you seeing out there? >> maria, it's really the same reaction we're seeing in broader equities today. you know, basically an overreaction. you know, we saw higher volumes in volatility spike on the open this morning with that gap lower. we've seen volumes in money flows just sort of steady out throughout the course of the day. obviously a lot of talk this morning on wall street about, you know, what happened over the weekend, you know, with cyprus. at the end of the day i think the market pretty quickly discould wanted this. i certainly know the players in the market discounted this very quickly as the chatter about it faded well before lunchtime today. >> the fear, steve liesman, was that this could be a domino effect. you'd have bank runs elsewhere in europe if this were allowed to continue. then maybe it would come over here. that's not likely, is it? i mean, isn't this a one-time special situation that's going on? they're trying to get, you know, solve a crisis with some banks that are just kind of insol vept there? >> i think that's the e meshmei

thinking right now. what was knee-jerk fear of contagion has become more considered contagion. it doesn't mean there isn't a heightened risk, perhaps, in italy or spain or portugal. i think that risk remains remote, maybe a little bit higher than it was before. there's at least two things that are special. one is the absolute size of the cypriate banking system relative to the gdp. eight times to total gdp there. the other is who those extra -- where that extra money comes from. a lot of it is -- is from russia. and a concern that, you know, maybe that's the place where some of the money to bail out the system should come from. probably the biggest worry for me is the idea that the imf and the european central bank signed on to this deal and the appearance that they were not thinking about potential contagion effects. >> right. >> that really causes some concern as to how aware they are of how markets function. i think there's a reason for bigger concern of all the other ones from that.

>> rick santelli, what kind of an impact are you seeing today? >> i look at 10-years, basically mid 190s all day. opened up. yields were lower. it's pretty much planted itself in that area. many are amazed we didn't see more action. whether you're looking at the cac, the dac, the boons, the oats, all markets are basically the same which is what people are talking about here. we really didn't see the black swan appear. we didn't see the lines in europe appear. and maybe that's the most disturbing aspect of all. bail in so you do the creditors versus taxpayers is understandable six months away from a german auction. but the way it was done, even if they don't pass it and they pull the idea, once it's out there as being considered, i'm very amazed that over time this doesn't have more significance. whether from the markets or just from the standpoint of the political class and how much latitude everybody continues to give them. >> yeah, but with the fallout from even discussing it in

public here, don't you think, rick, that'll have eu officials rethinking that strategy if they ever were thinking about it? >> if i was an eu official looking at the lack of market response to this, many down here are saying does that mean this is floating a balloon in some fashion will be a tax on other accounts? my answer would be no. but, still, the lack of market movement truly is amazing. >> steve wood, does this become a buying opportunity? do you buy on these dips that we've seen here? >> i think right now the market is close to where we think it'll end the year. there's going to be some volatility. that said, a lack of big change within the fundamentals, but then momentum right now and sentiment are clearly positive. sentiment and momentum can be very powerful. they're very fickle but they can be very powerful. i think right now pullbacks reloan that long term discipline asset allocation. the markets right now compared to your alternatives, they look attractive. >> what would make you nervous? that the european problems do start translating and hit our markets? >> if you look at, like, italy's

like an adjustable rate mortgage. 5%, you know, you've got problems at 3%. they're doing okay. if we see spreads in italy and spain react in response to this, this would cause us concern. also in france, too. france has got a mediterranean coast as well. we could see some pressure there. >> steve sachs, how would you play this as an investor? >> yeah. i definitely think we'd probably need to see a lot more headlines out of europe to really build any more concern than is already baked into the market. i think what we're seeing today is a reaction we've seen in the market for the better part of the last year. people are buying dips. people still want to add equity exposure. they still want to add risk to the portfolio. as much as i personally would like to see this market pull back and settling out here from a long-term health perspective, these dips are being bought. flows are still coming in across the equity spectrum. we think that probably continues for the bulk of this year. >> meaning you're just another brick in the wall, as they say. >> unfortunately. and don't get me wrong. it's very against my nature. but i'm pretty positive on

equities right now, yes. >> a first test for the new treasury secretary, steve liesman? >> i think so. i think we'll get a feel for his ability to do -- to calm markets. but right now this hasn't arrived at his doorstep. they've issued a kind of vanilla type statement that they're monitoring the situation. very much echoing the white house, bill. this is not a test just now, but it could be. and we know he's going to china. i guess that's tomorrow he's heading to china. my guess is it won't be long till he goes to europe and tries to create and forward some of those relationships that might be needed on those saturday midnight calls, bill. >> thanks, everybody. appreciate it. see you a little later. a quick check on today's big movers now. josh lipton has details for us. >> hey, bill. round up of today's leaders and laggar laggards. let's begin with the dow. leaders, hewlett-packard, where morgan stanley analysts upgrade the stock to overweight. upside from hp's emphasis on

cash generation. verizon as well as caterpillar also heading higher. united technologies hitting a historic high today. laggar laggards, boeing as well as banks like citigroup and jpmorgan. in the s&p 500, leaders today include jc penney where analysts at isi say the retailer could transform top locations into a reit like entity. other names in the green, best buy as well as consol energy. laggards, helmeritch & paine. and finally. in the nasdaq. intuitive surgical. analysts saying upside potential outweighs downside risk over the next month months. back to you. >> thanks, josh. we're heading toward the close. about 50 minutes left here. let's see if the markets will turn positive and finish that way for the day. right now the dow is down 23

points zblrjts coming up, we talk with former treasury secretary larry summers. he'll tell us what's worrying him about the bailout in cyprus. the dogs of the dow strategy worked again, so far. last year's worst performer is its best now. hewlett-packard helping the dow weather the storm from europe. get this. the once beleaguered stock is this year's best performer. up 60% just this year. we'll talk about whether hp can stay red hot coming up. noted banking analyst meredith whitney sees a tremendous buying opportunity in one big bank. we'll want to talk about bank of america, jpmorgan. which one does she like? stick around to find out when we speak to her exclusively at 4:10 p.m. eastern. [ male announcer ] every famous curve has an equally thrilling, lesser-known counterpart. conquer them with the exhilarating is 250. get great values on your favorite lexus models during the command performance sales event. this is the pursuit of perfection.

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hewlett-packard shares getting a boost today thanks to a an upgrade from morgan stanley to an overweight rating. they cited valuation. they think it's cheap even though hp has been this year's best performing dow component up some 60% just this year. that's a big turnaround, of course, from last year when hewlett-packard was the dow's worst performer. so is there still time to buy or have you missed the run? numbers on hpq today on the

technical side, abigail dolittle with the seaport group. on the fundamental side, steve cortez with veracruz. abigail, looking at that chart it's got to be a thing of beauty. would you still buy it at these levels? >> history has a funny way of repeating itself. we look at hpq's trading history, we see it's very likely to run significantly higher. when we look at a long-term trading chart we see that buyers have stuffed in very reliably to support shares around 11. sellers tend to take profits around or above 50. currently hpq is running up within that long-term trading range. buyers have managed to overcome those strong selling pressures on last year's capitulation bottom. i think we're looking at a $30 stock in 2013. but if history truly repeating itself as it did in the early part of last decade i think we could be looking at a $50 stock. i think these shares have room to run here. >> you agree with morgan stanley. what do you think, steve?

>> abfwal, i understand what you're talking about technically. fundamentally it's unfair to compare hp now to an hp from the 1990s when it was dominating a very hot market, pcs. the reality is right now hp is still primarily a pc and printer company. it has been so far irrelevant in mobile. it's trying to get into services. but it's butting up against some very intrenched, talented companies like ibm and oracle. >> good point, steve. good point, steve. but i think that all those concerns you raise are already priced in the chart. those were reflected by that severe selling trend that, again, capitulation bottom at the end of last year. i think investors are now focused on meg whitman's 2013 fix and rebuild, focus on cost cuttings. 2014 is likely to be the transformed year. then 2015 acceleration. i think the chart is telling us that meg whitman and her team are really going to surprise in terms of what they're doing with product. this year is not about the top line. it's about the bottom line and

conserving on cash. the chart really supports that investors are behind that kind of a turnaround. >> she's done a wonderful job of cost cutting. i will certainly concede that. that is not going to take you into the future, i think, from here. as much as the stock has rallied this year, it doubled since thanksgiving, many my view you really missed it if you weren't already on hp. as much as it rallied it's back to where it was when meg whitman first took over the company. since she took over the company the s&p 500 is up 400 points in that same time period. i think relying on her leadership as a stock investor is really a false premise. >> when you look at what she's been able to do with free cash flow and unfortunately cutting 29,000 jobs or the plans to do that with more than half already cut and the add that's made to free cash flow, i think we're going to continue to see that. i think buyers are going to be constructive on those moves and give her the room to again show us what she's going to do on the product line. respecting the move in software and enterprise. but while also acknowledging that there needs to be some sort

of move around smartphones and tablets. i think this is really a very bullish looking story and stock here. >> love it when two smart people disagree like that. thank you, both. good discussion on hewlett-packard. see you guys later. we're in the final stretch. 45 minutes until the closing bell sounds for the day. market down just a fraction, 27 points lower on the dow. let's get to this question. is the eurozone's latest banking crisis threatening to flow across the atlantic to our economy, our stock market? former treasury secretary larry summers has some opinions on that. he'll weigh in coming up next. >> and he has seen his share of crises. and bank stocks really lagging the market today because of europe. meredith whitney says there is one bank investors cannot afford to miss out on. you want to buy that stock today. we'll talk about it with her when she comes here exclusively at 4:00. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 you should've seen me today. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 when the spx crossed above its 50-day moving average, tdd# 1-800-345-2550 i saw the trend. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 it looked really strong. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 and i jumped right on it.

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welcome back. >> we came in this morning and we looked at losses across the board in asia. we, of course, have been reading and watching the developments out of cyprus. of course, that put a negative tone on this market. down 35 points is certainly worsening from when we started the show. remember, we are well off of the lows when the market was down better than 100 points earlier today. >> as some of your guests were saying in the closing bell exchange, look at one of two ways. one, yes, this is another crisis the eu has to deal with. are they setting a dangerous precedent by going after

depositor money and putting a tax on that? especially below that 100,000 euro threshold. that's like coming over here when you have fully insured deposits below $100,000 or in some cases $250,000 in banks and taking a portion of that money away. that was the fear. that that could become a strategy at some point to solve a banking crisis. or is this merely a one-time event, a special situation, given how much of the depositor money in cyprus is from outside the country, mainly from eastern europe and mainly from russia and mainly from the oligarchs who were in some cases trying to stash money away? >> it is the russian money that's actually getting impacted the most. i agree with that 100%. >> why else would vladimir putin weigh in on this whole strategy? >> we'll see what kind of an impact this has to the russian european relations. depending on the outcome. >> it has been so strong, hasn't it? could have an impact on natural gas. >> they have been strong relations, actually. you're right.

let's get to scott cohen with breaking news. >> maria, dow jones is reporting that criminal charges are imminent against the former ceo of the nation's largest pension fund, calpers. th he was sued by the securities and exchange commission last year over this. he and a friend. for allegedly scheming to get $20 million in fees from apollo management, the big equity firm, over placement agent fees. they allegedly were trying to get placement agent fees without the proper disclosure, basically falsifying disclosure documents that supposedly came from c calpers. dow jones reporting criminal charges against the former calpers ceo are imminent. more as we get it. back to you. >> thank you very much. all right. heading toward the close here. we've got about 40 minutes left. the dow down 35 points. on the open this morning, down

110 or there abouts. turned positive briefly. about 45 minutes ago. now we seem to be heading lower again. >> we're going to take a look next on cable tv networks. we're expecting an impact from a new plan by verizon to shake up how it pays for those channels. up next we'll lay out the proposal, tell you how it could affect cable stocks and what you see on television. >> maria, did you fill out your ncaa tournament bracket yet? >> not yet. >> we'll hear from somebody who says it's okay to fill out your bracket, but don't you dare touch your portfolio for march madness. plus, we'll tell you which college basketball team is racking up points and profits and will be seeing -- you'll be seeing red over this one, it says here. that's later on the closing bell. could you tell i was reading? [ kitt ] you know what's impressive?

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to rescue those banks. but to get it, the government must tax individual deposits held by banks in cyprus. that's the hot button issue. that pushed some citizens to run to bank branches and withdraw as much of their money as possible before those banks were closed. >> joining us right now with insights on this developing story is former u.s. treasury secretary lawrence summers. nice to see you again. thanks for joining us. >> good to see you, maria. >> let me ask you first your read on this. i guess the ultimate question is, you know, how likely is what's happening in cyprus happening -- likely to happen in the united states? but, first, are you surprised by this? characterize how you see this situation in cyprus playing out. >> look, this was a tactical blunder alongside a strategy adrift. the things in europe have gotten better in the last six months. but europe was not out of the

woods. there's still much that has to be done both in terms of reform on the financial side and in terms of assuring that there's demand there as austerity is imposed in the debtor countries. that was not all in place. and the risks of then being compounded by this quite extraordinary agreement, it is close to being unprecedented to contemplate taxing insured, guaranteed deposits of the entire banking system without regard to the health of each individual bank. without regard to what other financial assets are not being touched. so this idea that the little guy is the first victim in going after moral hazard is a new idea

in resolving financial crises. and is not a very good idea, as the pictures of people lining up at the atm machines demonstrate. >> as you know -- >> it's got to be the kind of thing that reduces confidence in the control over this whole situation that the european authorities have, that the imf has, that the global community has. and so one has to hope that an alternative and more sensible plan will be negotiated and implemented. even if it is, the fact that this could have been the product and could have been endorsed by the imf on behalf of the global community, that this could have been what the european union came up with, hardly gives

confidence in their crisis fighting skills. >> right. >> after three years, they don't have an excess of credibility to give up. >> you know, the fear was that those lines we saw in cyprus would be repeated today in places like italy and spain. that didn't happen. do you think people sense that this is a one-time event? it's a special situation given the state of the banking situation in cyprus? and where a lot of the deposit money comes from. namely, from russia. they're going after the oligarchs in some cases to try and retrieve some money as collateral for a bailout of some kind. this is a special situation, isn't it, larry? >> i hope so. and i hope it will continue to be seen that way. you know, there's an important difference between the accounts that are over $100,000 that may well be foreign money and large foreign money in many cases and the small accounts.

and, yes, of course some of the sharper, large sums of money have managed to break themselves up into multiple accounts. but there's still a big difference between accounts that were stated to be insured and accounts that were not stated to be insured. and the idea that the insured deposits, the ones that people felt were guaranteed by the government and were as good as any other government debt, the idea that they would be taxed heavily while all other claims would not be addressed at all -- >> right. >> -- appears to be what's going on. it's not even clear which categories have debt are being affected in which way here. has to leave people with a sense that they've got much less of a clear idea of how financial problems are going to be adjudicated than they did before. look, it's certainly better --

it's certainly better that you don't see any pictures of runs outside of cyprus. people standing in line. on the other hand, i think the question was always not would there be running immediately, the question was the next time there was reason for a scare, would everybody be on much more of a hair trigger than they had been before. >> and they certainly are. >> and would that be destabilizing. and that's why i worry about this. and i don't think that effect can be completely -- can be completely removed. >> let me ask you, larry, about the u.s. because i want to make sure to get your take on what we heard last week. the federal reserve stress tests. a number of winners in that. a lot of commentary that the banks here are on solid footing. what is your take in terms of the health of the u.s. financial institutions and to a lesser extent, the impact from cyprus and europe on the u.s. banks?

>> look, the u.s. institutions have come a long way. in the last four years. they've made tremendous progress. and we are long since out of the intensive care unit, and we're in most cases out of the hospital as well in terms of our banking system. and i think that's reflected in the results of the stress test. now, do we still have a lot of work to do or techniques of risk management and techniques of monitoring risk management all they should be? i don't think that we're there yet. do we have all banks well enough capitalized that one can confidently say that their borrowing is wholly on their own strength and not in part on some

aura coming from the government? i think we've got some distance to go before we're already there. are there activities that are going on in banks that are probably riskier than should go on in systemically important financial institutions? yes. and that's something that we have to address. but if you ask the fundamental question, relative to a banking system that really was in a government sponsored intensive care unit four years ago, we have made enormous progress. i don't think cyprus threatens that except indirectly. our financial institutions' exposure to cyprus are very small. exposures to europe have come down. so the impact here is not a

direct impact. but it is an impact, if this leads to a drying up of confidence in liliquidity and ds economic damage, that certainly will have an effect on our financial institutions. it would be tragic because with what's happening in housing, with what's happening in energy, with consumer balance sheets being fixed, i think the u.s. is poised for a period that is of more robust growth than we've seen in quite a while. and a generally bad psychology, a general move towards very high risk aversion would threaten that. >> right. larry, good to have you on the program. thank you so much. >> thank you, sir. >> maria, bill, good to be with you. >> see you soon. what is it like on the ground right now in cyprus? want to get that to you now. >> joining us right now from cyprus tonight a c nrk bc exclusive. this is luke benfield. he's the chairman and ceo of

cyprus based euro sure insurance company. we welcome you. i realize we're going to have a huge audio delay given the satellite technology. but we do want to get your take on -- get a sense of what it's like being in cyprus right now in the midst of this. is there tremendous fear? i mean, give us the mood where you are right now. >> well, good afternoon to you. i'm trying to put on a brave face and a smiling face, but we have issues obviously here. people have anger. they've been lied to. they've lost money. we don't know what tomorrow will bring. the decision or rather euro group's decision to provide us the loan has been put down with this i would say haircutting of the accounts, bank accounts,

which unfortunately incorporates the current accounts as well as deposit accounts. now, you can imagine what that enta entails. one day you have your savings for your children, for your business. suddenly it just goes out the window. we were assured last week by the president and all the political parties that 100,000 would have been secured. unfortunately, this is not going to be the case. >> right. >> they are thinking of taxing -- i say i think because i don't know if anybody's aware what's going on. saturday morning we all woke up and the news were out that we would be taxed with 7.95%. 6.75%. i'm sorry. >> to pay for the bailout. >> and 9.99% for over 100,000. >> to pay for the bailout. >> this is an extraordinary amount. to give you just a brief story,

there is -- the issue is one bank, a large cypriate bank which has major problems and needs bailing out, the euro group has said they will no longer guarantee this banking operating beyond tuesday. and they have pressurized the government to accept these terms. so either take it or leave it situation. our president, who's been in power for three weeks, was left with absolutely no choice -- >> luke, let me interrupt you right quick. i realize we've got this audio delay. i think the question we're all asking is are you able to run your business given the fact that banks will be closed until thursday? what is the expectation for normal business there if you don't have any banks open until thursday? >> what's your plan? what's your plan? >> i mean, until thursday i think we can all cope.

i don't think there's a major issue until thursday. the atm seems to be working up to a point. what's happened with the current accounts, the central bank has frozen really about 9% over our current account or seem to have frozen these amounts. so anything beyond that you can take out of the atms. business will not be moving. we don't expect anything to be moving this week. so the demand for cash flow i don't think will be there. it's people are still in shock. they haven't really understood what is going on. there's so much anger going on at the moment. i don't think even we'll sit down at our desk this week. we'll try to sort out what this means for each of our businesses, how this affects us cash flow wise, deposit wise, and what will this mean for our future operations. obviously it's not going to kill us. but it will sure make a very big dent in our immediate cash flows. >> very much. luke, we wish you well. and we'll be keeping tabs on

what's going on there. thank you very much for joining us. >> thank you, luke. things are worsening right now as we approach the close. we've just got 20 minutes before the closing bell sounds for the day. we've got a market that is once again inching back into the red. down 62 points. now, the low was down 110. then we came all the way back and then some and went positive. now we're looking at worsening as we approach this close here. >> looks like even another eurozone flare-up can crater highs of recent stock rally. when we come back, whether fears of a correction are overblown or not. trumors swirl the cit group is looking for a buyer. chairman and ceo john thain has answers in an exclusive interview with cit group.

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welcome back. verizon seeking to shake up how it pays television channels for their shows. instead of paying by the numbers of subscribers they can reach, verizon wants to pay for the number of viewers who are actually watching those shows. >> what a concept, right? this could change the playing field for cable distributors like comcast which owns this network and video content companies like espn, mtv, and so

forth. joining us to talk about this development, matt harrigan and chuck ross of tv week. chuck, i know you've been in the business as long as i have. you used to sell cable door to door. you know, back then when we were just getting started you packaged channels together and you sold it that way. aren't we at a point now where you can determine viewership and pay on -- based on that? right? doesn't that make sense? >> there's a big demand for people in the consumer world, if we believe what we read, to have shows and programs and channels ala carte. what cable's done for many, many years is as everybody knows, is they package shows. i'm not convinced that if one does not package shows, that it actually is the best possible way. for example, in my household, history channel. i've got kids. but history channel is not a big channel that we've been watching for a long, long time. lo and behold, last year they come up with a program with kevin costner and a great cast. it sounds wonderful.

"hatfields & mccoys." gets millions and million of listeners -- rather viewers. if we didn't have that in the package we wouldn't be able to tune into that show if we had been watching ala carte. because that's not one of our favorite channels. >> matt, people are paying up for their favorite channels. you can pay up for espn if you want it. but you're going to have to get a lot of other channels that maybe you don't want. are we seeing the accurate numbers in terms of viewership? or is it very different, basically, with verizon saying it is different? >> i think what verizon is trying to do at the margins, interesting for the smaller guys, say for ovation, deal b wi ing with time warner cable, i think you can apply that type of approach for the smaller guys. if you look at people like espn, of course, you've got very heavy sports costs. it couldn't work. you'd kind of really break down the whole ecosystem, if you will. and certainly there are some large programmers like viacom,

mtv networks, not nearly as well compensate bd by the viewership. the demographics of viewership are very different than for cnbc or espn and such. it's an interesting concept. i think you can apply it eventu eventually. it's not going to go to the core for a while. it's interesting to get the realtime measurement of the viewing. i think that's something that layers it in over time to advertising and subscription fees as well. >> chuck, don't you think ala carte is inevitable. that we will pay only for what we watch? >> if we can figure out how to do it in a way that makes sense. one of the figures that i have is that if we do it ala carte, how do we know what the next great channel's going to be? because no one's been watching it. no one's going to be subscribing to it. >> it's not as cumbersome as it used to be to turn to a new channel. they can flip a switch and

suddenly i get the channel if i want to watch "hatfield & mccoys." >> if not enough people are watching the history channel, it's not carried enough, there's not enough advertising fees or subscriber fees, there wouldn't be a history channel to begin with. that's the problem with it, bill. >> the question, though, that sprint is trying to do, sprint wants to pay for actual numbers of folks watching rather than the, you know, what could be in terms of how many viewers are available to watch. how do we know that the measurement of those viewers is actually accurate? >> matt? >> well, i think with verizon they certainly have the technical capability to do that in the home. i think increasingly outside the home with tv everywhere. what i want to hone in on, i think this is something that's really aimed at the smaller channels. this is not something you're going to go out to espn and disney tomorrow and try to deal with it. this is an evolution rather than a revolution.

i think it makes a ton of sense. history channel is getting a lot of attraction right now with "the bible." "vikings." et cetera. if they're able to monetize that, that's a nice carrot for some of the smaller programmers who are really getting traction with viewers. i think it's a good idea, but i think it will have limited applicability. >> very quickly, chuck. >> what we have to realize, a lot of it is a shelf space game. what's going on, for example, in the supermarket is p & g wants you to have tide and gain. viacom wants you to have mtv and vh1 and all their other channels. >> the free markets here would say, though, if they don't have enough ratings to -- to remain in business, except for that one program that they can come up with each year, maybe they shouldn't be in business. but that's for another time. that's another story. >> or they shouldn't be charging that. >> exactly. then they wouldn't be able to remain in business because they wouldn't have enough money on hand to produce "the hatfields &

mccoys." thanks, guys. while we were chatting the market continued a bit lower. here we're down 56 points on the dow with about 12 minutes left in the trading day. >> this market is dropping as we approach the close. will europe spark the correction so many have been predicting. we'll take a look next. also we're hear from somebody who says you'd be mad to touch your portfolio during march madness. why that could be a huge investment mistake later on cth "closing bell." just go online to pay, print and have your packages picked up for free. we'll do the rest. ♪ with fidelity's new options platform, we've completely integrated every step of the process, making it easier to try filters and strategies...

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welcome welcome back. this market is off of the lows of the day. down 110 at the lows. but things have been worsening into the close on these fears out of cyprus today. our next guest says that the turmoil in europe is bad for confidence and it is also bad for the banks. joining us to talk more about that on the floor with us is anthony chan of jpmorgan chase's private client business and our own bob pisani. good to have you on the program. >> good to be here. >> once again, europe on the front pages. it's going to be bad for confidence. do you think people should look at this and say, wait a minute, let me take money out of the stock market? >> well, i don't think that's going to be the long-term sitwausi situation. in the short term it raises a lot of nerves. the good news is that they're working towards making this a

little bit more palatable. perhaps lowering the amount they ask for from insured depositors or perhaps even eliminating that and just focusing on the uninsured depositors. >> that's not happening. >> not yet. again, there's the possibility. >> bob, the futures were ugly over the weekend when this story was unfolding. asia was down 2% overnight. we are not by any stretch of the imagination that way. is this about the resilience of our market or are we just figuring out cyprus is a one shot deal? >> you're right. concern was high yesterday. why has there been no freak out today? as i call around, the market tends to believe the ecb and the fed are going to backstop everything. if depositors flee they'll put the money back in the banks. if banks need money they'll give them more money to make up differences. my personal opinion, i don't know how you feel, it certainly was a mistake to include insured depositors. this might be a template for having bailins of additional unsecured creditors, additional

above -- >> i think that's the concern. my suspicion is if they see there's a lot of instability coming out of this, they will move away from that model and make sure these insured depositors are protected. >> who gets impacted here? when you're looking at u.s. banks, russian money, uk money, it's all in the soup here. who's actually getting the most impacted? >> maria, remember if it starts having an impact on global financial markets everyone is impacted. >> right. >> that's exactly what central banks don't want to be the case. >> could this spiral out of control? >> i don't think so. i think right now central banks realize instability is not a good thing. i think they're throwing this test balloon out there. i think if it starts unraveling i think they will quickly reverse course. >> is the selloff today a reason -- cyprus a reason or was it an excuse? >> did we need an excuse? >> look, it's remarkable how well we've hung on. we have sold off a little bit in the last hour. this was after the president of cyprus made some comments he's having trouble selling the deal. >> no kidding.

>> you're kidding. >> i want to go back to the depositors. >> depositors pay for a bailout with a tax? >> what about the 100,000 euro. that's the insured part. what about above that? don't you think you may see this in the future, bail-ins from depositors who are above the insured levels? >> i think that would be satisfactory. only the best case scenario you never have this kind of stuff. as long as you protect the insured depositors and feel as though the markets have an impact you're okay. i think the rumors today that somehow the russian's gas problem may come in and make -- all these things to make the insured deposit ora little more comfortable. >> you want to sell into this rally or buy? >> i really don't want tsell too much into this rally because i suspect that central banks around the world will come in and put safety nets in place. >> you're holding on to stock positions? >> absolutely. there's a lot of good things out there. central banks have come a long way. they're not going to throw this

baby out with the bath water just because 0.2% of european gdp is at risk. >> this is another effort to restructure debt in europe. it's going to be an ongoing, rolling thing. bringing in depositors is the first salvo. it's not going to go away. >> thank you, bob. thank you, anthony. we'll be back with the closing countdown in a moment. after the bell, exclusive interviews you won't see anywhere else. meredith whitney here talking about the banks. bullish on one of the country's biggest banks. plus, how europe's debt crisis could impact financials right here in the u.s. then cit group with chairman and ceo john thain. he'll address speculation his company is up for sale again. all ahead in the next hour of "the closing bell." you're watching "the closing bell" on cnbc, first in business worldwide. [ kitt ] you know what's impressive?

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